Wires
by Morithil
Summary: Yuuto watched Satsuki like Beast watches him, but with more than he has ever said or shown.


DISCLAIMER: CLAMP owns all, I can only ad-lib.

I have no idea where this fic sprung from, but the song "Wires" by Athlete came on the radio and suddenly I realised that it was the perfect song for Yuuto and Satsuki, who, oddly enough, aren't even among my favourite characters from X, let alone characters that I'd consider writing a fic on in the first place. I like these two more now. Inspiration is a funny thing. - Morithil.

**WIRES**

You got wires going in

You got wires coming out of your skin

You got tears making tracks

I got tears that are scared of the fact

Running down corridors, through automatic doors.

Got to get to you

Got to see this through

I seen hope is here

In a plastic box

I've seen Christmas lights reflect in your eyes

You got wires, going in

You got wires coming out of your skin

There's dry blood on your wrist

Your dry blood on my fingertip

Running down corridors, etc.

First night of your life

Curled up on your own

Looking at me now

You would never know

It wasn't until he found himself in a darkened corner of a deserted car park, watching her threaten a group of armed government suits that she would electrocute them all if it meant killing herself in the process that he realised he was in love with Yatouji Satsuki.

It was the bland look on her enigmatic face, he concluded, the expression that said she didn't care if her life ended there or if she took them all down with her. It was of no consequence. And Yuuto, who went through life as if on a whim, filled with an easygoing carefree acceptance of things, found that if there was one thing he couldn't accept, it was letting her die in front of him.

Odd, that given the sparse, almost clinical interaction they had in comparison to his relationship with Kanoe, that it would be this strange, alienated girl with her cool fingertips and eyes that spoke in zeroes and ones who would affect him more by ceasing to be there.

Her apathy disturbed him.

He cared for some things, of course. He cared for his sister, his female co-workers in the office. He cared enough to smile and congratulate young newlyweds, to send his white trenchcoat to the same upmarket dry cleaners every month, to call his sister every now and then, send her flowers on her birthday, cards at Christmas. But Satsuki cared for nothing, it seemed. How could you care about nothing? Beast, in his opinion, did not count. The elite computer was impressive, Yuuto admitted on the rare occasion, but still forever impersonal.

Satsuki sits waiting for someone to paint her in shades of monochrome, with a hue of faint rose for the curve of her closed lips.

So he took her out every so often, Italian restaurants, walks in the park culminating inevitably at the fountain, a chance to show off his skills. A chance to see that flicker, a pulse of a smile cross her face, a widening in those analytical eyes that hid behind lenses she probably didn't need.

He watches briefly before looking away, away from the wires that creep, snakelike in tendrils into her body and under her skin, invading what he has always considered to belong to her alone. It's unnatural, and he tears himself away from it every time. Yuuto thinks her face dulls when she hooks up with Beast; something dies in that barely emotive face, as if any humanity is seeped through the pores of her hands, thighs and pale throat into the system.

Satsuki works like a drone on nothing but pure energy alone. He even drinks more coffee than her, but it she who keeps the longest hours awake before flickering screens and alone in that abysmally cold room.

Yes, Beast is with her, but Beast doesn't count to Kigai Yuuto.

What counts is the way she lets him lead her places, places with his hand fingers splayed on the small of her back. What counts is in the way she asks for his opinions when the only things between them are a pot of steaming tea and the latest confectionaries dusted with the words he has never said.

A gasp as a shimmering ribbon of liquid floats round her like a lasso that breaks before capturing what it has chosen. Satsuki on all surrounding screens, pedalling like a girl possessed down the deserted street, thrown many feet into the air and landing safely, safely enough to spring to her feet and let her limbs carry her away, wheels forgotten. And he ran.

Yuuto ran from their headquarters, the curve of his whip already deadly in one hand. He watches Satsuki play her last card, the one enabling self-destruct.

So he stops her, and plays it cool. He makes the threats, draws blood faster than that computer did with the high school students outside the other Kamui's school. Yuuto uses his style, and uses it to his advantage every time. He flicks off the red switch, and she is safe.

And he is genuinely flustered when she asks him why he is here, the hand that rakes back his blonde hair is shaking at the back of his head, because what if she had seen it through?

And yes, Yuuto could put it down to her femininity, so bravely obscured behind military cut shorts and untailored jackets, but nothing hides her frailty or her curves when she comes down from her ice fortress and has tea with him below Beast. Her hair is short, one ponytail tamed almost rigidly at the back of her neck, where he has not placed his hand.

But it is not that.

Outside bedroom doors he thinks she is lonely, and almost regrets that he has not done something about Kanoe';s lack of tact, her obviousness. Because Satsuki is subtle, a heartbeat in the electronic highway she occupies and owns, she is a pale fantasy in that hard room.

Yuuto likes the way she looks at him when she thinks he isn't looking. He wishes she would look at him that way more often. It's then that he realises that the flame-haired human torch of the Dragons of Heaven is a distraction and nothing more, and more than likely there will come a day, perhaps tomorrow, when he will dismiss Kanoe in the same way. Satsuki stands apart from them, not only literally.

He knows she is bored by humans. So he sparkles for her, stretches the capacity of his wit and humour to bring a smile to those lips which will be softer than they look. And as he pours tea for a still-sleeping Kanoe in the morning, he will look at the tousled sheets and imagine her there, smoothing the covers down after the night before, relaxing into a small smile because he has been her first, and she will be his last.

And as they walk away from the drenched car park and back, he can almost believe that she knows she has him more than he has himself.

I see it in your eyes

I see it in your eyes

You'll be alright

Alright?

Running down corridors through

Automatic doors

Got to get to you

Got to see this through

I seen hope is here

In a plastic box

I've seen Christmas lights reflect in your eyes

First night of your life

Curled up on your own

Looking at me now

You would never know.


End file.
